Last week, senior CPI(M) leader Mohd Salim and state Congress chief Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury held a meeting to discuss seat-sharing.
WITH the Congress keeping its hopes up regarding an alliance with the Trinamool Congress, till the party dashed the same and unveiled names for all the 42 Lok Sabha seats in West Bengal on Sunday, the grand old party is still to work out a seat-sharing arrangement with its partner Left. This is even as the BJP too has released nearly half the names from its list.
From the outset, the CPI(M) was clear that it will fight against the TMC in Bengal, even as it maintained that it was a part of the INDIA bloc. The Congress too initially said it would fight the TMC and BJP in the state, but later moulded its stance given the keenness of the central leadership to reach an understanding with the TMC. The Congress and Left do not have a single candidate in the Bengal Assembly, while the Congress has just 2 MPs in the Lok Sabha from the state.
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The list by the TMC came eight days after the BJP announced 20 candidates from the state in its first list of 195 candidates.
Fissures between the Congress and TMC were at the fore as Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra entered the state in January. As Rahul traversed the state, Banerjee announced her party’s decision to “fight the BJP alone in the state”. She offered the Congress two Lok Sabha seats, an offer which the party refused, while insisting that “negotiations on seat-sharing with the TMC were on”.
The Left Front, however, has been fully behind Rahul in his “fight against the RSS-BJP injustice” and taken potshots at the TMC chief. “She is trying to derail the INDIA bloc’s “train”.
Last week, senior CPI(M) leader Mohd Salim and state Congress chief Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury held a meeting to discuss seat-sharing. “It is almost finalised. While the Congress will leave Murshidabad for us, we will leave Purulia and Raigunj Lok Sabha seats for them. However, their central leadership’s decision is what matters,” Salim said, adding that the party did not appreciate the fact that the Congress’s second-rung leadership “was still in touch with the TMC”.
Chowdhury justified the delay saying that the Congress was a big party and the leadership was in the process of finalising names. “We will put forward our views (on seat-sharing) when our turn comes,” he said.
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The Congress and CPI(M) contested the 2019 Lok Sabha polls separately. While the Congress won 2 seats with a vote share of 5.6%, the CPI(M) drew a blank with a vote share of just over 6%.
The Congress and CPI(M) joined hands with other “secular” parties – the CPI, Indian Secular Front (ISF), All India Forward Bloc (AIFB) and Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) – under the banner of the Sanjukta Morcha for the 2021 Assembly elections but drew a blank with vote shares of 2.93% and 4.73% respectively. The only party which managed to win a seat under the banner was the ISF, which now seems to be adding to the seat-sharing troubles of the allies.
The Abbas Siddiqui-led party has reportedly sought 12 seats. “The ISF’s demand is huge. We are ready to give them Uluberia, Basirhat and one more seat. Our leadership is in touch with them and hopefully the issue will be sorted in the next couple of days,” a senior CPI(M) leader said.
Atri Mitra is a Special Correspondent of The Indian Express with more than 20 years of experience in reporting from West Bengal, Bihar and the North-East. He has been covering administration and political news for more than ten years and has a keen interest in political development in West Bengal.
Atri holds a Master degree in Economics from Rabindrabharati University and Bachelor's degree from Calcutta University. He is also an alumnus of St. Xavier's, Kolkata and Ramakrishna Mission Asrama, Narendrapur.
He started his career with leading vernacular daily the Anandabazar Patrika, and worked there for more than fifteen years. He worked as Bihar correspondent for more than three years for Anandabazar Patrika. He covered the 2009 Lok Sabha election and 2010 assembly elections. He also worked with News18-Bangla and covered the Bihar Lok Sabha election in 2019. ... Read More
